CEN24LA178 · Cessna 172M
Cessna 172M · Accident: loss of control in flight on approach
Event
- NTSB case
- CEN24LA178
- Event typeAccident: someone killed or seriously injured, or the aircraft substantially damaged (NTSB definition). Incident: an occurrence that affected or could have affected safety, short of that. Glossary
- Accident
- InvestigationHow far the investigation had got when the record was published: preliminary, ongoing, final or completed. Unknown where the source does not say. Glossary
- Completed
- API-reported fatalities
- 0 · all aircraft and ground
- Ground fatalities
- 0
- OperationWhat kind of flying it was, grouped by the rules it flew under: airline (US Part 121), air taxi and commuter (Part 135), general aviation (Part 91 and similar), military or government. Glossary
- General aviation
- WeatherVisual meteorological conditions (VMC): good enough to fly by looking outside. Instrument conditions (IMC): cloud or low visibility, flying by instruments. Glossary
- Visual Meteorological Cond
Cessna 172M
- Aircraft type
- Cessna 172
- Category
- Airplane
- RegistrationThe aircraft's tail number, such as N12345 or G-ABCD. Registrations are reissued, so the same one years apart can be a different aircraft. Glossary
- N69PW
- Operator
- Unknown
- Onboard fatalities
- Unknown
- Route
- From not recordedTo not recorded
- Aircraft age
- About 49 years (built 1975)
- Flight rulesThe regulations the flight operated under: in the US, Part 91 (general aviation), Part 121 (airlines), Part 135 (air taxi and commuter) and others; for flights abroad, the NTSB's coarser commercial or non-commercial code. Glossary
- Part 91: General Aviation
- Phase of flightThe stage of the flight when things started to go wrong: standing, taxi, takeoff, initial climb, en route, maneuvering, approach or landing. Glossary
- Approach · VFR go-around
- Defining eventThe single coded event the NTSB judges best describes what happened (records from 2008 on). Older records name the first occurrence in the sequence instead. Glossary
- Loss of control in flight
- DamageDestroyed: beyond practical repair. Substantial: damage that affects the structure, performance or handling and normally needs major repair. Minor: less than that. Glossary
- Substantial
Cause areas
- Aircraft › Aircraft oper/perf/capability
- Aircraft › Aircraft systems
- Personnel issues › Experience/knowledge
- Personnel issues › Task performance
Approximate · Coordinates from the NTSB case API, which marks them as estimated or does not say; no uncertainty radius is established.
NTSB narrative
The pilot reported he was landing the airplane when a strong gust of wind pushed the airplane to the right about halfway down the runway. The pilot reported that after he initiated a go-around, the airplane became uncontrollable which resulted in an aerodynamic stall and impact with the ground. The impact resulted in substantial damage to the left wing and fuselage. Initially the pilot reported that there were no mechanical malfunctions related to the airplane so the airplane was released to the owner. Later, the pilot reported that he did not hear the stall horn and suspected it was inoperable. He also stated that the flap switch physically stuck in the up position which retracted the flaps fully and contributed to the stall. The pilot was asked to describe the normal operation of the flap switch. He stated that holding the switch up raises the flaps, holding the switch down lowers the flaps, and letting go of the switch shuts off the flap motor. When follow up was conducted on the reported mechanical issues, the airplane was found stripped of parts, thus examination of the stall horn was not possible. The flap switch was removed and examined. The flap switch specifications and the Pilot Operating Handbook both stated that the switch would remain in the up position until the switch was physically moved to the center (off) position, thus if the pilot let go of the switch while raising the flaps, the switch would stay in the up position and continue to raise the flaps to zero. During a go around, the flaps should have initially been retracted to 20 degrees which would require the pilot to move the flap switch back to the neutral position after the flaps reached 20 degrees. After the airplane was established in a climb, the remaining flaps would be retracted by returning the flap switch to the up position. The switch was found to operate normally with no defects found. Based on the pilot’s description of the flap switch operation it is likely he did not know how the switch functioned.
Probable cause
The pilot’s failure to maintain airplane control during a go-around in a gusting crosswind, which resulted in an aerodynamic stall and collision with terrain. Contributing to the accident was the pilot’s lack of system knowledge regarding the operation of the flaps.
Verbatim NTSB analysis and probable cause from the NTSB dataset
Sources
NTSB record CEN24LA178
- Event ID
- 20240509194231
- Case number
- CEN24LA178
- Dataset
- full-current
- Source SHA-256
- 5cf380f0061817c0331a6b2d8cc7e0ee3a79bea469a1001dc5c10e56f35f5ab3
Source notes (4)
- Unreviewed is an editorial label, not an investigation status. API-sourced is not report-checked or human-reviewed. Explicit event totals are used without summing aircraft injury tables; onboard allocation is withheld. Unknown values remain unknown. The operation category is mapped from the NTSB-reported FAR part and has not been reviewed.
- Filled from the NTSB case API where the bulk record had no value: investigation status, coordinates, cause areas. Values present in the bulk record are kept.
- The date is the local date, which is the same as the UTC date the NTSB stores.
- API snapshot SHA-256: 8d83741912da5e41487f83eac9da6f3c9dc961d80c841468749e27f9c28aa08d; retrieved 2026-09-16T18:45:01.352Z.